Christchurch Civic Building wins top Green Building awards

Team dedication and a commitment to the highest levels of sustainability have seen the Christchurch City Council (CCC) and Ngāi Tahu Property win a series of prestigious awards.

At Property Council New Zealand’s annual industry awards, the Christchurch Civic Building ‘Te Hononga’ took out the best of the best in the Resene Green Building category, taking the newly established title of ‘Best in Category’. It also won excellence awards in the Hawkins Construction Heritage and Adaptive Reuses category and the Hays Commercial Office category.

CCC and Ngāi Tahu Property jointly own Te Hononga. Originally a mail centre, it is now the council’s headquarters and comprises 23,000 m² of offices, civic chambers and public space. When the redevelopment was finished in 2010, it was awarded a record score of 83 Green Star points, making it New Zealand’s ‘greenest’ office building. NTP was the development manager for the project.

At a gala dinner, Property Council acknowledged how the building had been transformed into a functioning and aesthetically pleasing headquarters for the council.

“The redevelopment has enabled the council to have an essential presence in the CBD as we get underway with the rebuild,” Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker said. “The building is a beacon for the type of innovative, sustainable and leading global development that will transform our city.”

Ngāi Tahu Property Board director Barry Bragg said, “Te Hononga represents a team effort in pursuit of innovative design yet low-carbon footprint for Christchurch residents. It is great to get recognition that we have the capability of developing buildings at this scale and this level of sustainability.”

Straddling the cultural precinct of Worcester Boulevard and Hereford Streets, Te Hononga uses piped-in landfill biogas to power its own functions; to heat, cool and produce electricity. A north-facing ‘double-skin facade’ with automated blinds ensures perfect temperature and light levels. This was another key ingredient in the project’s Green Building success.

Highly innovative local engineers, architects and project managers oversaw the reincarnation from ugly industrial building to top-quality office complex, creating remarkably little waste. The project was finished on time and under budget.

Both owners wanted to acknowledge the large industry workforce that had been responsible for the transformation and also the series of repairs that had occurred to the building following the Canterbury earthquakes.

“We really have had a committed team on this building and it shows,” said Mayor Parker. “This award is due acknowledgement of the aspirations and dedication of everyone involved.”

Bragg said the redevelopment team was able to meet a series of demanding criteria, including:

• efficiency of building management systems;
• a self-regulating high indoor environmental quality via efficient sensor technologies;
• creation of a significant portion of the building’s own electrical, heating and cooling requirements via trigeneration, plus harnessing solar energy, rain gain and resistance energy for lifts;
• redeploying existing on-site materials wherever possible in the design. For example, otherwise redundant aggregate concrete panels were re-used in the landscaping;
• reducing building waste to an absolute minimum. Construction company Hawkins Construction achieved a recycling ratio of at least 86% of all demolition and building materials.